Everybody in the place I go to every day knows who I am and most are friendly towards me, but I am not the most valuable friend of anyone. Do they count as friends?
It sounds like you are making it a competition. It also sounds like you might be a little jealous and even doubtful, which could be why you aren't where you seem to want to be in your circle of....people.
It actually does matter what place you go and why you go there as to whether you are actually friends or not. Just because someone is friendly toward you doesn't necessarily make them your friends. They could just be polite. They could be acquaintances rather than friends, but there's no reason they couldn't turn into friends if that's the case.
It's good to have a friend. It's also hard to get friends. Although the people are probably just being courteous go ahead and pretend that they are your friends. It's better then using a sock puppet.
I'm not intending to diminish the value of sock puppets. They are definitely worthy. Hopefully the National Organization of Sock Puppets aren't going to sue me for discriminatory remarks. I have a friend that's a sock puppet. So I guess that proves I'm not being discriminatory?!?!? Ha! Ha!